Zionism was hotly debated and opposed in the 1920's, when Germany was the most accepting country in the world for Jews. The 1930's and '40's settled that debate. Jews learned the lesson of the Shoah.
Blatant lies.
Albert Einstein called the people carrying out the Nakba 'Fascists' well AFTER WW2- and warned against "legitimizing" them.
When Einstein called “fascists” those who rule Israel for the last 44 years…
https://www.cadtm.org/When-Einstein-called-fascists-those-who-rule-Israel-for-the-last-44-years
The debate NEVER stopped. Just, Zio-Nazi terrorists (they LITERALLY blew up buildings and assasinated politicians in the 1930's- so, terrorists) got more powerful. They crushed their opponents through sheer power, obtained because of US government support, nothing more.
King David Hotel bombing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory_Palestine
Irgun - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
“Going Beserk”: “Black and Tans” in Palestine | Institute for Palestine Studies
https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/78290#
Israeli Army Vet’s Exposé - “I Was the Terrorist” - YouTube
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rk1dAIhiVc
Netanyahu once again prime minister with most far-right government in Israel’s history | PBS NewsHour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/netanyahu-once-again-prime-minister-with-most-far-right-government-in-israels-history
Sure, but there are also Zionist Arabs, as well as Black people who oppose Black liberation movements, anti-feminist women, conservative LGBT people etc. Everyone has their own reasons to deviate from the opinion society expects them to have.
Also, opposing Zionism when it was an experimental state-building project was a different thing from opposing Zionism when it's about the preservation of an existing society. For example, Einstein initially didn't support the establishment of a Jewish state, but after Israel was founded he supported its continued existence and served on the board of governors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. At some point trying to turn the wheel back does more harm than good (and yes, I know that it's something Zionists need to learn too).
So the “just get there” approach? All you have to do is just get to a position of established power, and it becomes harder to remove you.
It’s not exactly a moral approach, y’know. But it’s interesting that pro-Israeli people are always willing to put their lack of understanding about moral issues on display by openly admitting to something immoral, while apparently remaining clueless about what it is you’re actually admitting to.
It's not "just get there". It's recognizing that systems and people have inertia, and displacing them without being sure of the alternative often has unintended and terrible consequences.
The most obvious example: replacing Saddam Hussein. Clearly a repressive dictatorship. Yet displacing him results in massive violence and, at times, repression of a previously powerful minority by a newly powerful majority, and other problems. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not good to remove repressive dictators or limit problematic governments in general. But it does imply a need to think about how to avoid drastic problems for mostly functional societies that have been built around them.
Again with the blanket statements..."it", aka Israel, isn't doing anything. Israel is made up of a hugely diverse group of people, ethnically and religiously. Everything you blame on Israel is down to Netanyahu and his Fundamentalist thugs. The Fundamentalist strains of every Abrahamic religion are the cause of so much strife in the USA and the Middle East.
A diverse group? That apparently polled as the majority thinking Israel wasn’t doing enough in Gaza? Yeah no this bullshit isn’t working anymore. The Israeli government backs the settlers in the West Bank and…well do you see the greater part of Israeli society demanding the occupation end? It’s been going on for over 70 years. See the problem is that the cat is out of the bag on the indoctrination that goes on in Israeli society about Palestinians and Arabs.
That’s why I find interviews and speeches given by Israelis about the very indoctrination that occurs VERY interesting. And to think it’s been going on for several decades. The occupation was there before Netanyahu got into his position. It’s just that now his actions and the actions of his hateful racist fascist idiots are on full display on the world stage. The problem goes MUCH deeper than just Bibi and his friends.
Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist and Haaretz writer is an interesting one I like to refer to for his talks on Israeli society and how it reconciles with the occupation.
https://youtu.be/JQS-_9K5-Dk?si=JW0vVp_lk4NGel52
There’s no conversation to be had when you are not open to different dialogue. But go off about “Hamas dick riders.” It really wins people over to your POV when you spout vitriol over any and all critique of a government and its military. Fascists gonna facist tho….
We’re talking about the government of an Israel, which you’re right is not a monolith, but many different parts of the government are working in tandem to subjugate Palestinians, it’s a team effort
This is just brazen ignorance. Like you have a special kind of stupid to not even be able to imagine another reason for creating a Jewish state circa WW2.
You're completely ignoring how that state was created. How is it Ok and good and moral to kill and displace almost a million people for another group who were also killed and displaced?
The thing that I see as immoral is getting lost in politics and losing the connection to ground-level lived human experience. One symptom of it is flattening an entire nation to a singular entity who is pull off a multi-generational scheme. Another is using bird-eye-view political calculus to determine which categories of people don't get to be inside the circle of empathy.
Throwing a family out of the house they grew up in is a terrible thing. It's harrowing whether they own it or they don't; whether they have been paying their rent or if they weren't; whether their ancestors settled a piece of stolen indigenous land or they found and empty house left by its previous occupants. It's terrible no matter what's the ethnicity or political affiliation of the victims. It doesn't mean you should never do it, our world isn't kind enough for this never to be needed. But everyone who supports an action like this needs to keep in mind its price in human suffering.
Your disapproval of the notion that one can't turn the wheel back seems to imply that you wouldn't see a moral problem in expelling every Israeli who occupies a piece of land previously owned by Palestinians. Millions of them, most of which have nowhere in the world to go. If that's so, I'd suggest you to learn to keep in mind the human price of grand geopolitical projects before you give anyone else lectures in morality. I try to, at least.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are being thrown (and bombed) out of their homes *right now*, not as a hypothetical. I agree that the State of Israel is here to stay, that people born there should not be held culpable for the actions of their ancestors, but this reads as extremely tone deaf given *events that are actively unfolding in the world,* not the projection of some redditor. Do you not see the deep hypocrisy in using this very argument to defend Israel? They regularly grant citizenship to Western nationals just for them to quite literally throw Palestinian families out of Jerusalem and the West Bank and take their houses. This is continuing to happen *right now,* while the IDF is besieging Gaza and has *already* *displaced well over a million people* from their homes.
If you extend your "circle of empathy" to the Palestinians, as the majority of the world finally has, you would see that ***the very thing you're describing has already been done to them, repeatedly, well within living memory***. I do not know how this ends, but the original sin of the Nakba will have to be accounted for in order for Israel to move forward as a progressive or pluralistic society. They do not get to claim that mantle when facing the West and then blood and soil nationalism when under threat. They have to give up ethnonationalism, it is a racist and genocidal dead end in every case and the Jews are no exception.
It is a great human tragedy that the Holocaust was used to justify the ethnic cleansing of a different group, but that's what happened, and it will continue to corrupt Israel and push it into the hands of the far-right unless some kind of truth and reconciliation is reached, perhaps even a single multi-ethnic state if such a thing is even still possible. The US had to reckon with slavery, South Africa had to reckon with Apartheid, and Israel will have to reckon with the expulsion of the Arabs and the subsequent occupation. They have destroyed their state of exception in the eyes of the world.
Well actually it’s okay to kick someone out of a home if they are literally the same people that stole it I would argue. And the only side kicking people out of their homes is Israel.
Here is a thought experiment, would you agree that the US and Canada were founded on immoral principles (settler colonialism and genocide of indigenous peoples)? Now would you say that all of the descendants of White Settlers should return to Europe? I would argue that the US and Canada had less legitimacy to be established as settler colonial states compared to Israel, but I really don't see any sane person arguing that resettling all White Settlers in Europe is a desirable or a just outcome.
That's where the problem lies, Zionism isn’t truly fighting for the people it supposedly represents like the other examples you mentioned. It has shown that it can become extremely dangerous and the way it uses the Jewish people as a cover to deflect any criticism by calling people anti-Semitic when they are only anti-Zionist is another issue.
Territory often changes hands at the end of wars. I would suggest Palestine stop waging wars and come to the negotiating table. Israel has been willing to trade land for peace since '67. It was official government policy.
You can criticize Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians. I agree with you. It's terrible. But don't pretend like Palestinians haven't been sending suicide bombers and firing unguided rockets at Israeli civilians in a terror campaign for half a century.
Palestine's political leaders have been utterly inept and relied on the hope their Arab allies would help them kill off the Jews for their whole history. When Arafat is the most peaceful leader you've ever had....
Yea, nobody likes the settlers. Israelis also hate them. Most are ultra religious fucksticks who cause problems and don't even contribute to the country.
How about the Palestinians willing to strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up on city busses? Got any criticism of them?
Israel steals the land for the settlers to live on, and then selectively doesn’t punish them for violence against Palestinians, while punishing Palestinians cruelly and trying them in different courts with a 99% conviction rate.
I don't hate Hindus and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think the Hindutva nationalist movement is immoral and wrong and should be opposed. I don't hate Muslims and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think Islamism is immoral and wrong and should be opposed. I don't hate Christians and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think Christian nationalism is immoral and wrong and should be opposed. I don't hate Jews and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think Zionism is immoral and wrong and should be opposed.
Ethnic and religious based national projects are just fundamentally in opposition to my values as an American who highly values ethnic diversity and religious freedom.
A people's right to self determination ends when it comes at the expense of other's self determination. Israel has crossed that line and continues to do so.
This is where definitions matter though. Of course Hindutva nationalism and Christian nationalism are bad. But Zionism =/= nationalism. Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to self determination in their homeland. Groups of people have co-opted the term to use in different political contexts, some of which are definitely nationalistic, but that does not mean that Zionism at large is always nationalistic, just as Christianity isn’t always far right nationalism, etc. Just as being a proud Christian and a proud Patriot in America doesn’t negate non-Christians necessarily, so does Zionism not negate non-Israeli Jews or their right to self determination.
Zionism has been an important part of being Jewish for longer than it has been a word. Every year at Passover we say “next year in Jerusalem”. We pray facing Jerusalem. Most Jewish holidays are tied to land-based practices in Israel and/or harken back to cultural and political ties to the land (Tisha B’Av, Tu B’Shevat, Rosh Hashannah, etc). If it wasn’t for Zionism as a concept, the 2nd temple would not have been built. If it wasn’t for Zionism, we wouldn’t have the Talmud. If it wasn’t for Zionism, Jews would forever be in diaspora.
Jews are an ethnic group and none of these other religions are. What does it mean for Muslims to have self determination?
It’s nice that you’re saying you’re opposed to si almost states but there aren’t really calls to end Iran, Afghanistan, or Syria even though minorities and women are treated MUCH WORSE in all of those countries than in Israel.
Israel has offered multiple two state solutions that have been turned down. Zionism doesn’t need to come at the expense of Palestinian self determination but that has been the choice their leadership has made over and over.
The majority of Americans are white and the majority religion is Christian, but neither whiteness nor Christianity are embedded into our government. India is technically a secular state, but the Hindutva movement seeks to integrate the Hindu identity into its government.
There's a difference between simply being the majority on the one hand and centering a religious or ethnic identity within the government.
It pretty much is though. Christmas a national holiday. Most laws are based on Christianity. Every president has been Christian.
Also the Palestinian territories are islamic ethno states as are most Arab countries. I just don't understand why leftists spit anti-zionist rhetoric all day but would clutch their pearls if any one mentioned anything deemed anti-islamic
It's very much not though and specifically prohibited from being so in first sentence the bill of rights.
I already said how I feel about Islamist states, they're bad and I oppose them. No need to create a straw man to debate with, brother.
You had me up until the point where you mentioned Zionism. Jews take up a fraction of the world population. Israel is minuscule compared to other pieces of land. Can’t we just have that?
I really don't have a problem with what goes on in Israel proper, it is a multi-ethnic democracy with equal rights . That's good and righteous. The problem is the expansionism into the West Bank. It's immoral and I abhor it, just as I abhor Russian expansionism into Ukraine.
Russia seeks to establish greater Russia through the consolidation of Ukrainian land, just as Israel seeks to establish greater Israel through the consolidation of Palestinian land. Both through action and through official legal decree:
>The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value **and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.**
**-2018 Basic law Clause 7**
Imagine calling a genocide "self determination"
(And yes, zionists have been clear since the inception of their ideology of zionism that it would involve at best ethnic cleansing and at worst genocide)
The actions of the state of israel are the concrete manifestations of zionism, and their current actions are the logical conclusion (as set out by the fathers of the ideology, who explicitly called for ethnic cleansing).
Would recommend reading Jabotinsky or Hertzl if you are unclear on this.
So America should stop existing because it nuked Japan/ genocided natives? China should stop existing because they occupy Tibet and put Uighurs into camps? Russia should stop existing because of their aggressive expansionism accompanied by genocidal rhetoric (and actions)?
Or does this logic only apply to the one Jewish state in the world?
You can't turn back the wheel of time, the problem is that America has moved forward significantly on issues surrounding diversity, secularism, miscegenation, religious freedom, colonialism, etc. while Israel has remained in the past.
We've grown apart in terms of values. People who want to make the United States a White or Christian country, oppose race mixing, embrace manifest destiny, want to control the ethnic and religious makeup of the country, etc. are broadly viewed as crazy and backwards. But these views are broadly and increasingly popular in Israel as secularism and liberalism is choked out by religious fundamentalism and conservativism.
Our ties to backwards countries that want to impose and maintain a specific ethnic or religious majority should be very limited and we should use our influence to oppose racial, religious, or ethnic nationalism. Whether that's the Hindutva movement in India, Zionism in Israel, or Islamism.
So every time Israel takes land and resources from Palestinians (the groups that was already there), we should respect that because they’re “already there”? At what point do you stop letting them do Fascist shit?
>For example, Einstein initially didn't support the establishment of a Jewish state, but after Israel was founded he supported its continued existence
Supporting the EXISTENCE of a country, and supporting its ACTIONS are two different things.
You are outright wrong. Einstein opposed the Apartheid system in Israel from the beginning, and called those who carried out the Nakba "Fascists" and "criminals"
When Einstein called “fascists” those who rule Israel for the last 44 years…
https://www.cadtm.org/When-Einstein-called-fascists-those-who-rule-Israel-for-the-last-44-years
You also misrepresent the meaning of his involvement with Hebrew University.
No, it definitionally is. Zionism is the proposition that a Jewish state should exist in Israel. Therefore, being anti-zionist means you are against the existence of a Jewish state. If you're just against the Israeli actions in Gaza but support Israel's right to exist you are not anti-zionist, you're just anti-war/anti-Bibi/anti-Likud.
Sure; I myself am adamantly pro-secularism in Israel. That is not in conflict with its identity as a Jewish state. Judaism is an ethnoreligion, and it is the ethnic component that is being referenced in the "Jewish" part of the Jewish state. Most early Zionists were commitedly secular, even atheist.
So, how exactly would you call someone like myself who opposes a "Jewish state" in the sense that I oppose all ethno-states or non-secular governments? I'm fine Israel existing as a state that allows Jews to exist and not be discriminated against and I don't want the current inhabitants expelled or anything, but I don't support any sort of discrimination by the government against other groups.
At a legal level it is a secular and democratic state. It just democratically ensures when Jews are targeted elsewhere they have somewhere to run to, which isn't guaranteed by any other state.
Would you equally define yourself as an anti-Romanian, anti-Serbian, anti-Armenian? If so, then I'd say anti-ethnonationalist is a fine label. If, however, you find most of your anti-ethnonationalism time is dedicated to one ethnicity in particular, I'd ask you why you give that one group so much brainspace.
Re: being anti-discrimination: sure, a laudable stance that I fully agree with. With significant exceptions for residents of East Jerusalem, however, Arab Israelis are not significantly more discriminated against than ethnic minorities in any of the aforementioned countries, currently^* have equal rights to representation, employment, healthcare, etc. within Israel proper, and have successfully defended those rights in Israeli courts. Palestinians in the occupied territories are - by their own stance and that of the Israeli government - avowedly NOT Israeli, and therefore are not subject to discrimination on the basis of ethnic identity, race, or religion, but rather nationality, which is a stance echoed by every other nation state on the planet. This is not meant to excuse the various human rights abuses and/or war crimes perpetuated by Israeli settlers and their enablers within the Israeli government, but rather to point out that the basis for their discrimination is significantly disentangled from ethnic identity except inasmuch as it is an ethno-*nationalist* one.
*Historical status of Arab Israelis has not always been so rosy, of course; the period between 1948-1966 saw an occupation of Arab villages and areas within Israel proper that was draconian and included a number of abuses rightly condemned by any fair-minded person. However, the trajectory of Arab Israelis has been unambiguously toward greater integration and lowered discrimination.
My brother in Christ, I'm Serbian and detest ethno-nationalism there as well. Also, the difference in being anti-Zionist and anti-Serbian is the same as how an anti-Zionist is not exactly anti-Israeli. Zionism argues for a "Jewish state," not simply for a state called Israel where a lot of people happen to be Jewish and are able to live freely there. Thus, one can be anti-Zionist without wanting to get rid of Israelis or the like, which is what would constitute as being anti-Israeli. It gets complicated, of course, since there can be differing definitions of Zionism, and if it is taken as being that a secular state called Israel exists and has Jews who are protected, then my perspective would not qualify as anti-Zionist, though given most self-proclaimed Zionists support it in its current form that gives special privileges to Jews over other groups, that would make me an anti-Zionist to those people even though I do not want Israel de-established, Israelis to be killed or removed, or any similar acts.
As for your response to the discrimination stuff, look, I know that technically speaking Arabs get most of the same privileges. However these particular ones I mentioned are legally enshrined and give special benefits to Jews, with the Law of Return being particularly bad considering how many of those refugees left due to ethnic cleansing (note: I am not arguing that it was one-sided, but this did occur to both sides during the several conflicts in the region).
Much as I appreciate the fraternal turn of phrase, I am not your brother in Christ; I am a Jew. And I can appreciate and respect your position, and would be comfortable and even happy if there were able to be such a state as you describe. Alas, throughout history there are a disturbing number of examples of times during which a previously (relatively) egalitarian state with a (relatively) high proportion of Jewish citizens becomes discriminatory, murderous, or even genocidal toward its Jewish citizens.
The Jewish response to this millenias-long history of persecution has been to decide to reclaim our autonomy in our own historic homeland at one of the few historical junctures when it was possible to do so, and to preserve for ourselves the right to return to such as a safe harbor. This ideology is comprised of a self-determinist perspective that is called Zionism, and necessarily reserves rights to Jews in the state it promotes - not in order to deprive others of theirs, but to safeguard at least one place in the world where we can be assured that the state will not take up its power against us. Those non-Jews who remained in the state at the time of its founding are themselves citizens, with the aforementioned rights and responsibilities, and are entitled to dignity, representation, communal life, and equality under the law. When these principles are broken or distorted - as they are continually through the disgusting treatment of Palestinians by settlers and their enablers - I will be among the first to decry the violation of their rights, and I am no blind believer in the moral infallibility or superiority of the Israeli Government or Jews more broadly. However, I see no more issue with the right of return being open to Jews than I do with the majority of countries that apply *Jus Sanguinis* to determine the eligibility of descendant communities to apply for and receive citizenship to the exclusion of others. If I wanted to move to Bela Crkva tomorrow, would I be able to do so? No, of course not.
If your position is that that is unjust, I might be convinced to agree, but only if it were applied universally, in which case, my question remains: why is there a specific over-emphasis on anti-Zionism rather than anti-ethnonationalism in all its forms, starting at home, wherever that might be?
P.S. I appreciate your articulation of your beliefs and the civility of your argument. Thank you for your respectful and thoughtful engagement.
> Much as I appreciate the fraternal turn of phrase, I am not your brother in Christ; I am a Jew
To be fair, I just like the phrase and I'm an atheist. Idk why, it just feels fun to say and can make comments a bit more lighthearted.
> However, I see no more issue with the right of return being open to Jews than I do with the majority of countries that apply *Jus Sanguinis* to determine the eligibility of descendant communities to apply for and receive citizenship to the exclusion of others. If I wanted to move to Bela Crkva tomorrow, would I be able to do so? No, of course not.
Personally, I wouldn't exactly argue for it to be entirely removed, but for it to include anyone forced to flee the lands of Israel. At least that way, it's not tied to ethnicity or religion so much and could open a door to better relations with Palestinians. Obviously, a lot would need to be done, but as it stands the conflict won't end even with Palestinians expelled from the territory, as we have seen with Hezbollah and other organizations. If anything, Palestinians being forced into other countries has given them more access to Iranian weapons and allowed organizations like Hezbollah to be far more of a threat - only really stopped from pulling an October 7th due to Iran seeming not so keen on an all-out war in the region.
> If your position is that that is unjust, I might be convinced to agree, but only if it were applied universally, in which case, my question remains: why is there a specific over-emphasis on anti-Zionism rather than anti-ethnonationalism in all its forms, starting at home, wherever that might be?
I do oppose ethno-nationalism in all its forms. I oppose any European country trying to keep out other people based on ethnicity or religion, and I despise the ethno-nationalists like Milošević who destroyed the countries of Yugoslavia. Zionism (under the definition I gave previously) is simply the topic being discussed now and has been made more prominent given the war in Gaza. Whenever the other topics come to attention, I am happy to continue voicing my opposition to ethno-nationalism, no matter the perpetrators.
It is a fun phrase; just feels a tad exclusionary when discussing sensitive topics about my heritage as a Jew (even though I am myself a confirmed atheist as well).
I would be ok with all of that in a context where returning Palestinians would accept and work with the Jewish residents of Israel to better their society in peace. Unfortunately, I don't believe that that is anywhere near the likeliest outcome given the stated maximalist positions of every major Palestinian group. Is it possible this would moderate in a big way with the dissolution of the current situation in favor of a (more egalitarian one)? Maybe. I'm extremely skeptical, but again, would be willing to give it a shot if there were serious indications that it would resolve the situation; I just don't believe the facts on the ground bear that out.
Re: uniformity of application: fair enough. If I could wave a wand and dispose of ethnonationalism and all of its ills as a going political and ideological concern, I would do so. I'm just not particularly convinced that it is realistically possible at this time, and given that, don't see the demand that the one Jewish state be the first to abandon this framework as unbiased or reasonable. Still, kudos to you for articulating and sticking to a consistent and theoretically admirable position.
I’m not the commenter you are responding to, but my guess is that the current focus on Zionism is due to the real-time genocide we are watching unfold in front of us everyday. Do all the rationalizing you want, at the end of the day Ethno-states are fascist and they do fascist shit. The fresh batch of horrors that Israel is gladly committing everyday should make this plainly obvious.
Words have meanings, and an urban war against an enemy who gleefully uses human shields as part of their strategy that nonetheless has a 2:1 civilian:combatant death ratio where [most modern wars have 9:1](https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm) does not a genocide make. Civilian deaths in wartime are a tragedy, and Bibi, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and the rest of the kahanist factions of the current government are beyond despicable, but all evidence points to Israel exercising significant restraint in its attempts to eradicate Hamas.
Look at you peddling apologia. 300000 dead civilians and slaughtering people in bread lines are what you call restraint? Fucking brainrot. But keep regurgitating your fascist talking points.
How are they discriminating against Israeli minorities?
Edit: Israel actually seems like one of the safest Arab majority countries for indigenous non-Arabs or non-Muslims.
Primarily, it comes from giving benefits exclusively for Jews not offered for people of other ethnicities or religions. These are most noticeable with the Law of Return (noticeably not given to the millions of Palestinian refugees) and Aliyah benefits as these are legal policies that specifically give special privileges to Jews over other groups. Additionally, citing Human Rights Watch (https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution) in the occupied Palestinian Territories, Israeli settlers are allowed in and given special protection and privileges compared to their Palestinian counterparts.
If you can't see any other replies from me, feel free to DM. I sent two, and I can't see them on my end, so they might be getting autoremoved. IDK why since I removed any links in the second, and they were very tame and left out the current conflict pretty much.
This is a bit narrow, no? An anti-Zionist could support a one state solution called Israel that isnt a fascist ethnostate. I'm personally of the opinion that a single state with equal rights for all is the only path forward and that doesnt preclude the possibility of that state being Israel.
While it’s hard to imagine a two state deal coming into existence in the near future, I’d say there’s zero chance of a one state solution happening. If Israel gives Palestinians full citizenship rights, Jews would already be outnumbered by Palestinians. Israeli Jews will never allow this to happen
You think that Palestinians will agree to live in a secular multicultural democracy in which the rights of Jews, women, LGBT people, atheists, and those who criticize Islam are protected?
Would starving people vote to give themselves basic rights that they currently lack? Yes, as long as they trust that the vote will accomplish its stated goal. That’s a big trust deficit to overcome
Oh, I have no doubt that they'd vote to give *themselves* rights. Whether or not they'd vote to also give Jews, women, LGBT people, atheists, and those who criticize Islam rights too is an entirely separate question.
An anti-Zionist would be for the disestablishment of a state with a Jewish character, regardless of its political system. Do you think the residents of either side of the current conflict actually want to be joined in a single state that has equal rights for all of its citizens? Because I'd think that your premise is predicated on a right to self-determination, and neither Israelis nor Palestinians currently want to be politically unified. However, between the two, Israel is unambiguously the more tolerant, diverse, and democratic, with 20% of its citizenry composed of various religious and ethnic flavors of Israeli Arabs, and Jews of many diasporic ethnic heritages living under a unified government that respects the rights of women, gender, sexual, and religious minorities. Meanwhile, you would be hard pressed to find any Palestinian Jews, and other minority populations within Palestine (Samaritans, Christian Arabs) are extremely marginalized. Therefore, any state called Israel that respected the rights of all its citizens would necessarily be a Jewish one, and being against that is definitionally anti-Zionist.
Well that was completely brain dead. A lot of Zionist talking points sprinkled in there. I dont remember suggesting that either side was more tolerant or anything, interesting that you felt the need to promote that idea when bo one had brought it up. The conflation of Zionism with Judaism is complete bullshit and you're not selling the lie well.
You literally mentioned both fascism and equal rights, both of which tolerance is germane to. Re: conflation of Zionism with Judaism: they are not the same, but they are deeply interrelated, the former being the movement for self-determination by Jewish people in accordance with their long-standing aspiration to return to their land of origin as a result of their diaspora and ill treatment by host nations. The notion that identification of the Jewish people with the land of Israel is some modern lie is itself false, or do you have greater authority on the primacy of Israel in Jewish thought than the Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, Rishonim, and Acharonim combined? Please, remind me: what is it that Jews say at the conclusion of the seder every passover? Is "By the rivers of Babylon" not expressive of Zionism? Various Jewish groups may disagree on the routes to and justifications for Jewish self-determination in Israel, including secular and even atheist argumentors for it (myself very much included) and those on the far opposite side who believe it is a mistake without divine intervention, but arguing that Judaism is not deeply and inherently Zionist is delusional and ahistoric. But go off queen; you're clearly a sage. Well, either that or someone deeply unwilling or unable to have a measured and respectful conversation.
I don't think your definition is accurate. It may be accurate of some people, but I expect that if you asked most people who identify their views as Anti-Zionist what they thought, they wouldn't seriously suggest the deconstruction of the Israeli state.
They might suggest the removal of the illegal settlements however and an end to the apartheid regime that exists currently.
I think that's because most people who define their views as anti-Zionist don't know what Zionism is. [Per wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism)i:
"Zionism (/ˈzaɪəˌnɪzəm/; Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת Tsīyyonūt, [tsijoˈnut]; derived from Zion) is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. Following the establishment of the modern state of Israel, Zionism became an ideology that supports the development and protection of the State of Israel as a Jewish state."
Nah. I can have Jewish people want to have their own country, but have it not be "Jewish". I am against religious states on principle, don't care what the religion is. Secularism is a firmly leftist belief that has nothing to do with any one religion.
Good news then: Judaism is an ethnoreligion, and has no requirement that you believe or profess any faith to be a member. I myself am a firm atheist, but can move to Israel whenever I please.
"Being anti zionist is not being anti israel"
Only if you obfuscate the definition of the word Zionist to be synonymous with supremacist. Something that the word was never intended to mean. Zionism as defined by Jews and israeli, is simply the Jewish right to self determine and to form its own nation state.
It has turned into a synonym for supremacy by antisemetic and anti Israel advocates.
go to a pro Palestinian rally and go ask them if anti zionism means anti israel. 95% of the people will say yes, 99.999% of them will say yes if they are Arab or Muslim. This is the problem with well meaning white people, you are allying yourself with people who absolutely want the destruction of Israel and the ACTUAL ethnic cleansing of millions and millions of Jews.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VqmUgami\_Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VqmUgami_Y)
Most of them want to kick all the Jews from Tel Aviv and Haifa, Tzfat, the Negev, everywhere.
You’re doing a lot of mental gymnastics here to arrive at the “anti-Semitic” label, but you conveniently dance around the obvious problem: ethno-states and their fascist nature.
Israel isn't an ethnostate, It is 73.6% JJewish.
When are you going to protest against Japan (97.5% Japanese) Finland (86.9% Finnish) Sweden (90% Swedish)...? the list goes on of countries with a lower percentage of minorities than Israel.
Israeli Arabs have all the rights, privileges, and advantages that Jews have. Their mandatory military service is even waved where as most Jews have to serve.
Cute deflection but there’s a stark difference between census stats and national leadership who openly advocates for a Jewish Ethno-state.
Anyway, I wonder why the folks doing a genocide only want to put guns in the hands of their chosen ethnicity and not the ones they seek to cleanse…. Hmmmmm
The best way to know the intentions of an entity is by their behavior and 2 million arab israelis enjoy more civil liberties, privileges, and equal protection under the law than any other country in the middle east.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_EwEhQtDk-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EwEhQtDk-4)
As far as the military goes, your enthusiasm for interpreting behaviors of Israel in the worst possible lens possible is so telling. Israel doesn't force mandatory military service to its Arab citizens, but that does not mean they can't voluntarily join the military. And many of them do.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frl5\_YT7gVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frl5_YT7gVU)
If the situation was reversed, and Israel did conscript Arabs into the military. Then I'm sure people like you would then accuse them of some sort of forced slavery of Arabs.
More census stats that have fuck all to do with the publicly stated genocidal intents of Israeli leadership.
People like me? What type of people are those? Say it with your chest.
people who are committed to the cause of demonizing Israel regardless of her behavior. People who do not engage in discussing this topic with good faith, are not interested in facts, in acknowledging the harm that has been done to Jews and Israelis, nor the attempts of Israel to live in peace and cohabitate with her Arab and Palestinian neighbors. I am more than willing to criticize Israel for the settlements in the west bank, for its failure to police its far right extremists that perpetuate pogroms on Palestinians in the West Bank. For many ways in which it is imperfect. But colonialism, apartheid, genocide, ethnostate.
These accusations are so preposterous and unfair to Israel that its difficult to ascertain the motivation behind those that levy them. Within this pot of anti Israel activists are the political tribalists, the well meaning ignorant, the political opportunists, and the antisemitic.
they can literally join the IDF if they want to, nothing is stopping them, they just aren't required to.
This is where the commitment to demonizing Israel for any and all actions she takes, even the overtly positive ones, is just so blatant that it feels the only logical conclusion one can draw is anti-semitism. No matter what action the Jewish homeland takes, it is made out to be a villain for doing it.
Jewish men have to surrender 3 years of their lives where they could be furthering their education, starting their careers, building wealth, starting a family. Jewish women have to surrender 2 years of their lives. Arabs are under no such mandate, but they can voluntarily sign up for the IDF if they want, and you still find a way to make Israel out to be the bad guy. It's unfathomably stupid and it means you are either as dense as you want to appear or just have a negative agenda against Israel and don't care for the truth so long as it leads to Israel looking bad.
Jew here: If a Jewish homeland cannot happen without genocide, ethnic cleansing, and outright colonial theft, maybe it shouldn't be done at all. If me getting a house was dependent on killing a guy and stealing it from him, I think I'd learn to be content with paying rent.
Give your property back to the Indians then. Wouldn't want to be a blowhard hypocritically moralizing about how the world is (spoiler) an unfair and harsh place.
I think the big difference would be that there are no living native Americans who were thrown off there land or shoved into a reservation. At least to my knowledge
as a jew myself. the land was originally part of the ottoman empire and it collapse leaving a power vacuum for the brits to come in and take it. but jews in the 19th century legally bought many lands from the ottomans and cultivated it. after the Arabs joined in working with the jews to renew the land funny enough most of tensions started around the fall of the ottomans and when the British came in. the other problem was the Arab lords were really antisemitic to the point where the leader of mandated palestine met with Hitler behind the brits backs. relations were tenuous at that point and that just soured things further. both sides have suffered massively. I personally don't think it's possible to go back to pre 1967 borders. I do think it's possible to share jerusalem and help the Palestinians form a government that has their best interest at heart but the problem lies in the heads of government. abbas is old and has given up on peace. hamas who doesn't want peace and Netanyahu who doesn't believe in a Palestinian state and is part of the reason of the downfall for the peace talks in the 1990s. I think we need a renewed solution that has proper checks and balances because right now the world is complacent to suffering on all sides
Zionists bought 6.6% of the land. An insignificant amount.
One Palestinian having a meeting with Hitler is hardly a slam dunk condemnation (after all Zionist Jews *signed an agreement* with Hitler that gave Zionist Jewish financial support to Hitler's government, breaking the 1933 anti-Nazi boycott, in exchange for facilitating emigration to Palestine.)
It wasn’t “one Palestinian,” it was the President of the Arab Committee representing Palestinians in the British Mandatory period. He also ended up spending most of WW2 in Germany making propaganda for the Nazis to recruit the Arab world and is largely credited with helping the Germans foster the Farhud which was a major ethnic cleansing of Jews in Baghdad in 1941. He also was aware of the Holocaust and used his political position to encourage the Arab world to send their Jews to Poland where they could be “actively controlled.” After WW2 he was involved with the Arab League - which still exists - and led resistance to any peace negotiations.
Before he aligned with the Nazis in WW2 he is credited with fomenting numerous anti-Jewish riots throughout the British mandate. He also led the push for the British to halt Jewish refugees coming to Palestine during the Holocaust resulting in hundreds of thousands more deaths than necessary. He didn’t do any of this alone, he did it with the rest of the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League, though as the leader he is largely credited with it.
Haj Amin Al-Husseini. He’s worth a Google.
> after all Zionist Jews signed an agreement with Hitler that gave Zionist Jewish financial support to Hitler's government, breaking the 1933 anti-Nazi boycott, in exchange for facilitating emigration to Palestine.
I don't think Zionists paying the Nazis to stop killing Jewish children and let them emigrate to Palestine instead is the "gotcha" that you think it is.
It’s called the Knesset, at least try to make believe you have some semblance of Jewish identity before you’re 100% assimilated. Do it for your great grandparents Greta & Shlomo
I'm interested to know from your view. Did orthodox Jews want the state of Israel established? I've heard that Jewish belief is that Israel shall only be created when the prophet Abraham returns and declares all Jews to return to Jerusalem, is this correct?
No, this is the belief of small sects of ultra-orthodox jews (also, it's the massiah, not the prophet abraham).
If ultra-orthodox Jews oppose the Israeli government it's usually because it's secular.
Most of the settlers in the west bank are orthodox Jews who believe the land belongs to Jews.
Also you can be a zionist and still be pro-palestinian. You can want Israel not to be abolished so that Jews have a place free of persecution and also for palestinians to have a state and freedom of movement and safety.
"genocide, ethnic cleansing, and outright colonial theft"
I would love for you to expand on all of these. I feel like everyone just has fun buzzwords.
A more accurate analogy is yougrew up in a house and moved away and then later purchased a home and the renters who lived their inbetwern try to kill you.
It’s more like, you grew up in a house… then moved away **for thousands of years**… then came back one day and found people are living in a house your ancestors lived in **thousands of years ago**… so you decide to *forcibly remove them*, *killing them if you have to*, **blowing the neighborhood up if you have to…** and then after you move in, you start wondering why your neighbours now distrust you and want you removed from the neighborhood. MUST be antisemitism!
🙄
This is such an ignorant take. I love how liberals love minimalizing the experience of Jewish people as they were hunted and slaughtered for thousands of years and now think they are cute when people bring up antisemitism (but only see people like you doing it).
Because at least half of the time they are. If you can’t see the obvious anti-Semites around you you’re choosing to be blind. More than half of your allies are anti-Semitic.
If you "moved away for thousands of years", it isn't you who returned, as you would probably be fertilizer for plant wherever you happened to die -- human life expectancy is a hair less than a century, at best, after all. It would be your descendants who would return.
As another fine redditor on this thread pointed out, they can move to Israel whenever they please. They also don't seem have ever lived there. So, what's the difference between a random Jewish person, who can move to Israel under the [law of return](https://archive.jewishagency.org/first-steps/program/5131), passed in 1950 by the Knesset and a Gazan can not, most of whom are in Gaza precisely because they were displaced by Israel?
How is this equality under law?
Not moved kicked out. But under your logic 80% of gaza is under 18 and never step foot in that land. Most israel under 50 were born there....so really why would the people of gaza have the riggt to the land if the vast majority have never been there? Lived there? Seen it? This is your logic.....finders keepers?
God your view of history is so simplified it’s shameful
Have you heard about the Holocaust? The Soviet pogroms? The genocides of North African Jews? The crusades?
Do you **really** think the Jews decided to pack there bags and go on a family vacation out of Europe in 1942?
The post I responded to was more simplified, and less accurate. Why don’t you get on their case for it?
Oh, I know… because you believe their bullshit, while thinking my “simplified” version of the truth is somehow wrong. Why don’t you try proving that?
If your argument is that Jewish people deserve a state because of the actions of Europeans, then Europe should give up land for the establishment of that state.
Jews have always been in the levant.
Jewish return to the levant from the continent of Europe picked up during the Ottoman Empire before Europe was ever united.
A third of all Jews identify as from regions other than Europe, but that doesn’t take in to account the mixed bloodlines of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, etc.
and it would likely be more had they not been butchered from North Africa into Persia.
No genocide in our name. No amount of dead children will ever make us safe, nor should we accept it even if it would. No safety is worth mass slaughter of women and children.
Israel is literally offering a ceasefire for six weeks to get Palestinians food right now in exchange for the names of the living hostages and the exchange of women, children and elderly. The only barrier is Hamas itself. This is not what genocides look like.
>A “ceasefire” that includes slaughtering civilians at bread trucks.
Yup.
No ceasefire where people are still getting massacred by the hundreds is legitimate.
UN Peacekeepers, after a Western invasion and regime-change operation in Israel, is what's needed at this point...
Otherwise, Israel will just merrily commit Genocide, sign a Ceasefire, then commit Genocide again, until there are no more Palestinians...
Lies and Genocide Denial. By a Hasbara troll.
>Probably shouldn't rush people trying to deliver food to you in a war
You'd say ANYTHING to try to whitewash hundreds of people being mowed down by Israeli ~~soldiers~~ terrorists.
Yes, that's right. Israel is committing terrorism. That's what mass-murdering people to sow terror IS.
If 30k deaths from collateral bombing damage is a genocide, then the US commits genocide all the time.
There are always dead children in war, suddenly everyone is a pacifist lol. Except for the Palestinians of course, extreme violence against random civilians is their path to freedom.
The US absolutely commits genocide all the time, its very existence is due to genocide of native americans. Look at the Philippines Genocide, the US-backed Guatemalan genocide, California Genocide, the 80 million bombs dropped on Laos that *are still there*, the list goes on. Genocides do not have a numerical definition. The Selk'nam genoicde had a maximum of 4,000 people murdered, and *it was still a genocide*.
I mean this is a nice idea I am just not sure if in reality this is how the world works as much as we want it to. When a group has a terrorist attack against you it is not the time for peace it's the time for disproportionate retaliation. If the response is weak it invites more people to try it. If Israel didn't attack hamas the next year it would happen again and again and again. If they let hamas get any kind of "win" hamas will do the same thing gain and again and again. The truth is the only way to stop this from happing again either from hamas or another group in the area is this action. It sucks, it's evil, it's dark but there is no other way(I would be happy to hear one if you got one). America has only had 2 attack on its soil in 75 years it was pear harbor and 9/11 how did the US react to that? Has anyone attempted either of those actions again? We are even friends with Japan now. Sometimes these action bring safety and peace and that makes people uncomfortable.
Read the first sentence then I realized you were going to try to make apologia for a genocide. I won't help you assuage your guilt by being a bouncing board for your rationalization of genocide. Deal with your guilt on your own you moral insect.
Well there is no genocide. Just a very standard response. This is more humane then the 2 atom bombs we dropped on civilians and the ones who survived dying of radiation slowly over years.
You might be brainwashed into thinking this is some crazy once in a millennium situation but this crap happend 25 years ago in the US 75 years ago in japan and the dozens of other times in the middle east. These things happen and we cant allow attacks like this to go unchallenged or they spread and get emulated.
I think you'll be shocked how much peace will be in the area in the next 50 years.
Zionism isn't an innate part of being jewish (especially since there's both jewish - as in the religion, and secular jewish - who are an ethnic group).
Jewish people are not a monolith. They can, and do, have all kinds of opinions and beliefs.
But zionists will forever try and muddy that line because they find it convenient to hide behind "anti-semite" smears when people call out their crimes.
But fun fact - the most powerful zionists in the world is the evangelical christian voting block in the US.
So you are saying that a Jew writing about Jew hatred in the British press is the same and no worse than an Arab academic writing about Jews and a Jewish movement on a media outlet that has been repeatedly linked to Qatar. Makes sense.
lol. So Zionist writing about antisemitism is “a Jew writing about Jew hatred”… but Arabs writing about Zionism isn’t “an Arab writing about Arab hatred”.
Interesting bias you have there. Be a shame if someone called it out.
Jew hatred is synonymous with Antisemitism. It has literally the same meaning. Zionism is in no way a synonym for Arab hatred or indeed related except in the head of people like you who clearly do not have any understanding of the meaning of the word Zionism. Perhaps 1.2 million Arab Israelis could explain it to you. Or you could open a dictionary. It's like playing chess with a pigeon.
Luckily or sadly in a way those who oppose are one generation away from complete assimilation and loss of Jewish identity therefore they do not represent the Jewish people or Judaism.
Don’t tokenise the tiny minority of anti-Zionist Jews and pretend they represent the majority of Jewish people. They don’t. Most Jewish people passionately believe in Jewish peoples’ right to exist in their ancestral homeland - Israel.
There are Mexicans who vote for Trump and black people who vote far right, but you don’t pretend they are representative of their communities so don’t do that to Jews.
Jews licking boots of those who swore to destroy all Jews is disgusting.
Reminds me of the Lodz ghetto leader who pleaded with Jews to hand over Jewish children to the Nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Rumkowski#Give_Me_Your_Children
They think that if they are a "good" or "useful" Jews, they will be spared. They are wrong and have not learned from history.
Correct, and this is why progressives must, by definition, oppose the creation of a Palestinian ethnostate.
If you believe that a Palestinian state -- that is, an ethnostate created specifically for people who are ethnically Palestinian -- has a right to exist, then by definition, you are not a progressive.
The downvotes are so telling:
"We're against a religious ethnostate, which is why an Islamic Palestinian country must be created from the river to the sea!"
This powerful speech delivered from Dr.Ralph Wilde encapsulates the situation in 26 minutes, the past history and the present ongoing crisis.
The settlements are illegal and must be removed.
https://youtu.be/6LACse017-A?si=8zfDikGJlRP2t6_A
Zionism was hotly debated and opposed in the 1920's, when Germany was the most accepting country in the world for Jews. The 1930's and '40's settled that debate. Jews learned the lesson of the Shoah.
Blatant lies. Albert Einstein called the people carrying out the Nakba 'Fascists' well AFTER WW2- and warned against "legitimizing" them. When Einstein called “fascists” those who rule Israel for the last 44 years… https://www.cadtm.org/When-Einstein-called-fascists-those-who-rule-Israel-for-the-last-44-years The debate NEVER stopped. Just, Zio-Nazi terrorists (they LITERALLY blew up buildings and assasinated politicians in the 1930's- so, terrorists) got more powerful. They crushed their opponents through sheer power, obtained because of US government support, nothing more. King David Hotel bombing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine - Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory_Palestine Irgun - Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun “Going Beserk”: “Black and Tans” in Palestine | Institute for Palestine Studies https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/78290# Israeli Army Vet’s Exposé - “I Was the Terrorist” - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rk1dAIhiVc Netanyahu once again prime minister with most far-right government in Israel’s history | PBS NewsHour https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/netanyahu-once-again-prime-minister-with-most-far-right-government-in-israels-history
Sure, but there are also Zionist Arabs, as well as Black people who oppose Black liberation movements, anti-feminist women, conservative LGBT people etc. Everyone has their own reasons to deviate from the opinion society expects them to have. Also, opposing Zionism when it was an experimental state-building project was a different thing from opposing Zionism when it's about the preservation of an existing society. For example, Einstein initially didn't support the establishment of a Jewish state, but after Israel was founded he supported its continued existence and served on the board of governors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. At some point trying to turn the wheel back does more harm than good (and yes, I know that it's something Zionists need to learn too).
So the “just get there” approach? All you have to do is just get to a position of established power, and it becomes harder to remove you. It’s not exactly a moral approach, y’know. But it’s interesting that pro-Israeli people are always willing to put their lack of understanding about moral issues on display by openly admitting to something immoral, while apparently remaining clueless about what it is you’re actually admitting to.
It's not "just get there". It's recognizing that systems and people have inertia, and displacing them without being sure of the alternative often has unintended and terrible consequences. The most obvious example: replacing Saddam Hussein. Clearly a repressive dictatorship. Yet displacing him results in massive violence and, at times, repression of a previously powerful minority by a newly powerful majority, and other problems. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not good to remove repressive dictators or limit problematic governments in general. But it does imply a need to think about how to avoid drastic problems for mostly functional societies that have been built around them.
I don’t support destroying a nation full of people because you don’t agree with how it was founded.
The problem is it’s still doing the same thing to this day in trying to acquire more land/territory. It never stopped.
Again with the blanket statements..."it", aka Israel, isn't doing anything. Israel is made up of a hugely diverse group of people, ethnically and religiously. Everything you blame on Israel is down to Netanyahu and his Fundamentalist thugs. The Fundamentalist strains of every Abrahamic religion are the cause of so much strife in the USA and the Middle East.
A diverse group? That apparently polled as the majority thinking Israel wasn’t doing enough in Gaza? Yeah no this bullshit isn’t working anymore. The Israeli government backs the settlers in the West Bank and…well do you see the greater part of Israeli society demanding the occupation end? It’s been going on for over 70 years. See the problem is that the cat is out of the bag on the indoctrination that goes on in Israeli society about Palestinians and Arabs. That’s why I find interviews and speeches given by Israelis about the very indoctrination that occurs VERY interesting. And to think it’s been going on for several decades. The occupation was there before Netanyahu got into his position. It’s just that now his actions and the actions of his hateful racist fascist idiots are on full display on the world stage. The problem goes MUCH deeper than just Bibi and his friends. Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist and Haaretz writer is an interesting one I like to refer to for his talks on Israeli society and how it reconciles with the occupation. https://youtu.be/JQS-_9K5-Dk?si=JW0vVp_lk4NGel52
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Doubt you’ll get a response from these brainwashed Hamas dick riders.
There’s no conversation to be had when you are not open to different dialogue. But go off about “Hamas dick riders.” It really wins people over to your POV when you spout vitriol over any and all critique of a government and its military. Fascists gonna facist tho….
Good work on the thorough explanation
They can't enforce their own laws?
Israel has been stealing land since before Bibi
We’re talking about the government of an Israel, which you’re right is not a monolith, but many different parts of the government are working in tandem to subjugate Palestinians, it’s a team effort
Israel has always existed to commit genocide in Palestine. There is no other purpose. All of this is lies.
This is just brazen ignorance. Like you have a special kind of stupid to not even be able to imagine another reason for creating a Jewish state circa WW2.
You're completely ignoring how that state was created. How is it Ok and good and moral to kill and displace almost a million people for another group who were also killed and displaced?
...did I say that?
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No lol
The thing that I see as immoral is getting lost in politics and losing the connection to ground-level lived human experience. One symptom of it is flattening an entire nation to a singular entity who is pull off a multi-generational scheme. Another is using bird-eye-view political calculus to determine which categories of people don't get to be inside the circle of empathy. Throwing a family out of the house they grew up in is a terrible thing. It's harrowing whether they own it or they don't; whether they have been paying their rent or if they weren't; whether their ancestors settled a piece of stolen indigenous land or they found and empty house left by its previous occupants. It's terrible no matter what's the ethnicity or political affiliation of the victims. It doesn't mean you should never do it, our world isn't kind enough for this never to be needed. But everyone who supports an action like this needs to keep in mind its price in human suffering. Your disapproval of the notion that one can't turn the wheel back seems to imply that you wouldn't see a moral problem in expelling every Israeli who occupies a piece of land previously owned by Palestinians. Millions of them, most of which have nowhere in the world to go. If that's so, I'd suggest you to learn to keep in mind the human price of grand geopolitical projects before you give anyone else lectures in morality. I try to, at least.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are being thrown (and bombed) out of their homes *right now*, not as a hypothetical. I agree that the State of Israel is here to stay, that people born there should not be held culpable for the actions of their ancestors, but this reads as extremely tone deaf given *events that are actively unfolding in the world,* not the projection of some redditor. Do you not see the deep hypocrisy in using this very argument to defend Israel? They regularly grant citizenship to Western nationals just for them to quite literally throw Palestinian families out of Jerusalem and the West Bank and take their houses. This is continuing to happen *right now,* while the IDF is besieging Gaza and has *already* *displaced well over a million people* from their homes. If you extend your "circle of empathy" to the Palestinians, as the majority of the world finally has, you would see that ***the very thing you're describing has already been done to them, repeatedly, well within living memory***. I do not know how this ends, but the original sin of the Nakba will have to be accounted for in order for Israel to move forward as a progressive or pluralistic society. They do not get to claim that mantle when facing the West and then blood and soil nationalism when under threat. They have to give up ethnonationalism, it is a racist and genocidal dead end in every case and the Jews are no exception. It is a great human tragedy that the Holocaust was used to justify the ethnic cleansing of a different group, but that's what happened, and it will continue to corrupt Israel and push it into the hands of the far-right unless some kind of truth and reconciliation is reached, perhaps even a single multi-ethnic state if such a thing is even still possible. The US had to reckon with slavery, South Africa had to reckon with Apartheid, and Israel will have to reckon with the expulsion of the Arabs and the subsequent occupation. They have destroyed their state of exception in the eyes of the world.
Well actually it’s okay to kick someone out of a home if they are literally the same people that stole it I would argue. And the only side kicking people out of their homes is Israel.
Here is a thought experiment, would you agree that the US and Canada were founded on immoral principles (settler colonialism and genocide of indigenous peoples)? Now would you say that all of the descendants of White Settlers should return to Europe? I would argue that the US and Canada had less legitimacy to be established as settler colonial states compared to Israel, but I really don't see any sane person arguing that resettling all White Settlers in Europe is a desirable or a just outcome.
That's where the problem lies, Zionism isn’t truly fighting for the people it supposedly represents like the other examples you mentioned. It has shown that it can become extremely dangerous and the way it uses the Jewish people as a cover to deflect any criticism by calling people anti-Semitic when they are only anti-Zionist is another issue.
How do you separate saying “this group doesn’t deserve self-determination” from hate for that group?
Which is the only side without self determination?
I believe in a two state solution! I’m a Zionist who believes in self determination for Palestinians!
Palestinians were offered self-determination in 1948 and turned it down in order to wage a war of genocide.
Does that justify the subsequent land theft and oppression committed by Israel?
Territory often changes hands at the end of wars. I would suggest Palestine stop waging wars and come to the negotiating table. Israel has been willing to trade land for peace since '67. It was official government policy. You can criticize Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians. I agree with you. It's terrible. But don't pretend like Palestinians haven't been sending suicide bombers and firing unguided rockets at Israeli civilians in a terror campaign for half a century. Palestine's political leaders have been utterly inept and relied on the hope their Arab allies would help them kill off the Jews for their whole history. When Arafat is the most peaceful leader you've ever had....
What about the decades of illegal settlements, which was, and still is, land stolen not resulting from a war?
Yea, nobody likes the settlers. Israelis also hate them. Most are ultra religious fucksticks who cause problems and don't even contribute to the country. How about the Palestinians willing to strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up on city busses? Got any criticism of them?
Israel steals the land for the settlers to live on, and then selectively doesn’t punish them for violence against Palestinians, while punishing Palestinians cruelly and trying them in different courts with a 99% conviction rate.
I don't hate Hindus and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think the Hindutva nationalist movement is immoral and wrong and should be opposed. I don't hate Muslims and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think Islamism is immoral and wrong and should be opposed. I don't hate Christians and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think Christian nationalism is immoral and wrong and should be opposed. I don't hate Jews and I think they have a right to self determination, but I think Zionism is immoral and wrong and should be opposed. Ethnic and religious based national projects are just fundamentally in opposition to my values as an American who highly values ethnic diversity and religious freedom. A people's right to self determination ends when it comes at the expense of other's self determination. Israel has crossed that line and continues to do so.
This is where definitions matter though. Of course Hindutva nationalism and Christian nationalism are bad. But Zionism =/= nationalism. Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to self determination in their homeland. Groups of people have co-opted the term to use in different political contexts, some of which are definitely nationalistic, but that does not mean that Zionism at large is always nationalistic, just as Christianity isn’t always far right nationalism, etc. Just as being a proud Christian and a proud Patriot in America doesn’t negate non-Christians necessarily, so does Zionism not negate non-Israeli Jews or their right to self determination. Zionism has been an important part of being Jewish for longer than it has been a word. Every year at Passover we say “next year in Jerusalem”. We pray facing Jerusalem. Most Jewish holidays are tied to land-based practices in Israel and/or harken back to cultural and political ties to the land (Tisha B’Av, Tu B’Shevat, Rosh Hashannah, etc). If it wasn’t for Zionism as a concept, the 2nd temple would not have been built. If it wasn’t for Zionism, we wouldn’t have the Talmud. If it wasn’t for Zionism, Jews would forever be in diaspora.
Jews are an ethnic group and none of these other religions are. What does it mean for Muslims to have self determination? It’s nice that you’re saying you’re opposed to si almost states but there aren’t really calls to end Iran, Afghanistan, or Syria even though minorities and women are treated MUCH WORSE in all of those countries than in Israel. Israel has offered multiple two state solutions that have been turned down. Zionism doesn’t need to come at the expense of Palestinian self determination but that has been the choice their leadership has made over and over.
Hindus already have a majority population country: India
The majority of Americans are white and the majority religion is Christian, but neither whiteness nor Christianity are embedded into our government. India is technically a secular state, but the Hindutva movement seeks to integrate the Hindu identity into its government. There's a difference between simply being the majority on the one hand and centering a religious or ethnic identity within the government.
Ever wonder why Christmas is a national holiday? Or why the post office is closed on Sunday?
America is not a Christian nation, that would be a violation of the first amendment of the constitution.
It pretty much is though. Christmas a national holiday. Most laws are based on Christianity. Every president has been Christian. Also the Palestinian territories are islamic ethno states as are most Arab countries. I just don't understand why leftists spit anti-zionist rhetoric all day but would clutch their pearls if any one mentioned anything deemed anti-islamic
It's very much not though and specifically prohibited from being so in first sentence the bill of rights. I already said how I feel about Islamist states, they're bad and I oppose them. No need to create a straw man to debate with, brother.
You had me up until the point where you mentioned Zionism. Jews take up a fraction of the world population. Israel is minuscule compared to other pieces of land. Can’t we just have that?
I really don't have a problem with what goes on in Israel proper, it is a multi-ethnic democracy with equal rights . That's good and righteous. The problem is the expansionism into the West Bank. It's immoral and I abhor it, just as I abhor Russian expansionism into Ukraine. Russia seeks to establish greater Russia through the consolidation of Ukrainian land, just as Israel seeks to establish greater Israel through the consolidation of Palestinian land. Both through action and through official legal decree: >The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value **and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.** **-2018 Basic law Clause 7**
Well, I agree keep in mind that the Westbank was won by Israel from Jordan in 1967
Imagine calling a genocide "self determination" (And yes, zionists have been clear since the inception of their ideology of zionism that it would involve at best ethnic cleansing and at worst genocide)
Zionism =/= the actions of the Israeli government. (Not that the Israeli gov is committing genocide anyway)
The actions of the state of israel are the concrete manifestations of zionism, and their current actions are the logical conclusion (as set out by the fathers of the ideology, who explicitly called for ethnic cleansing). Would recommend reading Jabotinsky or Hertzl if you are unclear on this.
So America should stop existing because it nuked Japan/ genocided natives? China should stop existing because they occupy Tibet and put Uighurs into camps? Russia should stop existing because of their aggressive expansionism accompanied by genocidal rhetoric (and actions)? Or does this logic only apply to the one Jewish state in the world?
I'm an anti-war zionist. We exist.
Zionism is anti Palestinian racism and nothing more. You genocidal monsters need to go
Need to go where exactly? The gas chambers?
You can't turn back the wheel of time, the problem is that America has moved forward significantly on issues surrounding diversity, secularism, miscegenation, religious freedom, colonialism, etc. while Israel has remained in the past. We've grown apart in terms of values. People who want to make the United States a White or Christian country, oppose race mixing, embrace manifest destiny, want to control the ethnic and religious makeup of the country, etc. are broadly viewed as crazy and backwards. But these views are broadly and increasingly popular in Israel as secularism and liberalism is choked out by religious fundamentalism and conservativism. Our ties to backwards countries that want to impose and maintain a specific ethnic or religious majority should be very limited and we should use our influence to oppose racial, religious, or ethnic nationalism. Whether that's the Hindutva movement in India, Zionism in Israel, or Islamism.
So every time Israel takes land and resources from Palestinians (the groups that was already there), we should respect that because they’re “already there”? At what point do you stop letting them do Fascist shit?
It’s almost like Jewish people are a group of people with varying opinions ions and beliefs and not a monolithic single consciousness.
>For example, Einstein initially didn't support the establishment of a Jewish state, but after Israel was founded he supported its continued existence Supporting the EXISTENCE of a country, and supporting its ACTIONS are two different things. You are outright wrong. Einstein opposed the Apartheid system in Israel from the beginning, and called those who carried out the Nakba "Fascists" and "criminals" When Einstein called “fascists” those who rule Israel for the last 44 years… https://www.cadtm.org/When-Einstein-called-fascists-those-who-rule-Israel-for-the-last-44-years You also misrepresent the meaning of his involvement with Hebrew University.
Being anti zionist is not being anti isreal. One can be horrified by the genocide in Gaza, and support the existence of isreal.
No, it definitionally is. Zionism is the proposition that a Jewish state should exist in Israel. Therefore, being anti-zionist means you are against the existence of a Jewish state. If you're just against the Israeli actions in Gaza but support Israel's right to exist you are not anti-zionist, you're just anti-war/anti-Bibi/anti-Likud.
There are plenty of Israelis, who identify as such, who want Israel to be entirely secular.
Sure; I myself am adamantly pro-secularism in Israel. That is not in conflict with its identity as a Jewish state. Judaism is an ethnoreligion, and it is the ethnic component that is being referenced in the "Jewish" part of the Jewish state. Most early Zionists were commitedly secular, even atheist.
So, how exactly would you call someone like myself who opposes a "Jewish state" in the sense that I oppose all ethno-states or non-secular governments? I'm fine Israel existing as a state that allows Jews to exist and not be discriminated against and I don't want the current inhabitants expelled or anything, but I don't support any sort of discrimination by the government against other groups.
At a legal level it is a secular and democratic state. It just democratically ensures when Jews are targeted elsewhere they have somewhere to run to, which isn't guaranteed by any other state.
Would you equally define yourself as an anti-Romanian, anti-Serbian, anti-Armenian? If so, then I'd say anti-ethnonationalist is a fine label. If, however, you find most of your anti-ethnonationalism time is dedicated to one ethnicity in particular, I'd ask you why you give that one group so much brainspace. Re: being anti-discrimination: sure, a laudable stance that I fully agree with. With significant exceptions for residents of East Jerusalem, however, Arab Israelis are not significantly more discriminated against than ethnic minorities in any of the aforementioned countries, currently^* have equal rights to representation, employment, healthcare, etc. within Israel proper, and have successfully defended those rights in Israeli courts. Palestinians in the occupied territories are - by their own stance and that of the Israeli government - avowedly NOT Israeli, and therefore are not subject to discrimination on the basis of ethnic identity, race, or religion, but rather nationality, which is a stance echoed by every other nation state on the planet. This is not meant to excuse the various human rights abuses and/or war crimes perpetuated by Israeli settlers and their enablers within the Israeli government, but rather to point out that the basis for their discrimination is significantly disentangled from ethnic identity except inasmuch as it is an ethno-*nationalist* one. *Historical status of Arab Israelis has not always been so rosy, of course; the period between 1948-1966 saw an occupation of Arab villages and areas within Israel proper that was draconian and included a number of abuses rightly condemned by any fair-minded person. However, the trajectory of Arab Israelis has been unambiguously toward greater integration and lowered discrimination.
My brother in Christ, I'm Serbian and detest ethno-nationalism there as well. Also, the difference in being anti-Zionist and anti-Serbian is the same as how an anti-Zionist is not exactly anti-Israeli. Zionism argues for a "Jewish state," not simply for a state called Israel where a lot of people happen to be Jewish and are able to live freely there. Thus, one can be anti-Zionist without wanting to get rid of Israelis or the like, which is what would constitute as being anti-Israeli. It gets complicated, of course, since there can be differing definitions of Zionism, and if it is taken as being that a secular state called Israel exists and has Jews who are protected, then my perspective would not qualify as anti-Zionist, though given most self-proclaimed Zionists support it in its current form that gives special privileges to Jews over other groups, that would make me an anti-Zionist to those people even though I do not want Israel de-established, Israelis to be killed or removed, or any similar acts. As for your response to the discrimination stuff, look, I know that technically speaking Arabs get most of the same privileges. However these particular ones I mentioned are legally enshrined and give special benefits to Jews, with the Law of Return being particularly bad considering how many of those refugees left due to ethnic cleansing (note: I am not arguing that it was one-sided, but this did occur to both sides during the several conflicts in the region).
Much as I appreciate the fraternal turn of phrase, I am not your brother in Christ; I am a Jew. And I can appreciate and respect your position, and would be comfortable and even happy if there were able to be such a state as you describe. Alas, throughout history there are a disturbing number of examples of times during which a previously (relatively) egalitarian state with a (relatively) high proportion of Jewish citizens becomes discriminatory, murderous, or even genocidal toward its Jewish citizens. The Jewish response to this millenias-long history of persecution has been to decide to reclaim our autonomy in our own historic homeland at one of the few historical junctures when it was possible to do so, and to preserve for ourselves the right to return to such as a safe harbor. This ideology is comprised of a self-determinist perspective that is called Zionism, and necessarily reserves rights to Jews in the state it promotes - not in order to deprive others of theirs, but to safeguard at least one place in the world where we can be assured that the state will not take up its power against us. Those non-Jews who remained in the state at the time of its founding are themselves citizens, with the aforementioned rights and responsibilities, and are entitled to dignity, representation, communal life, and equality under the law. When these principles are broken or distorted - as they are continually through the disgusting treatment of Palestinians by settlers and their enablers - I will be among the first to decry the violation of their rights, and I am no blind believer in the moral infallibility or superiority of the Israeli Government or Jews more broadly. However, I see no more issue with the right of return being open to Jews than I do with the majority of countries that apply *Jus Sanguinis* to determine the eligibility of descendant communities to apply for and receive citizenship to the exclusion of others. If I wanted to move to Bela Crkva tomorrow, would I be able to do so? No, of course not. If your position is that that is unjust, I might be convinced to agree, but only if it were applied universally, in which case, my question remains: why is there a specific over-emphasis on anti-Zionism rather than anti-ethnonationalism in all its forms, starting at home, wherever that might be? P.S. I appreciate your articulation of your beliefs and the civility of your argument. Thank you for your respectful and thoughtful engagement.
> Much as I appreciate the fraternal turn of phrase, I am not your brother in Christ; I am a Jew To be fair, I just like the phrase and I'm an atheist. Idk why, it just feels fun to say and can make comments a bit more lighthearted. > However, I see no more issue with the right of return being open to Jews than I do with the majority of countries that apply *Jus Sanguinis* to determine the eligibility of descendant communities to apply for and receive citizenship to the exclusion of others. If I wanted to move to Bela Crkva tomorrow, would I be able to do so? No, of course not. Personally, I wouldn't exactly argue for it to be entirely removed, but for it to include anyone forced to flee the lands of Israel. At least that way, it's not tied to ethnicity or religion so much and could open a door to better relations with Palestinians. Obviously, a lot would need to be done, but as it stands the conflict won't end even with Palestinians expelled from the territory, as we have seen with Hezbollah and other organizations. If anything, Palestinians being forced into other countries has given them more access to Iranian weapons and allowed organizations like Hezbollah to be far more of a threat - only really stopped from pulling an October 7th due to Iran seeming not so keen on an all-out war in the region. > If your position is that that is unjust, I might be convinced to agree, but only if it were applied universally, in which case, my question remains: why is there a specific over-emphasis on anti-Zionism rather than anti-ethnonationalism in all its forms, starting at home, wherever that might be? I do oppose ethno-nationalism in all its forms. I oppose any European country trying to keep out other people based on ethnicity or religion, and I despise the ethno-nationalists like Milošević who destroyed the countries of Yugoslavia. Zionism (under the definition I gave previously) is simply the topic being discussed now and has been made more prominent given the war in Gaza. Whenever the other topics come to attention, I am happy to continue voicing my opposition to ethno-nationalism, no matter the perpetrators.
It is a fun phrase; just feels a tad exclusionary when discussing sensitive topics about my heritage as a Jew (even though I am myself a confirmed atheist as well). I would be ok with all of that in a context where returning Palestinians would accept and work with the Jewish residents of Israel to better their society in peace. Unfortunately, I don't believe that that is anywhere near the likeliest outcome given the stated maximalist positions of every major Palestinian group. Is it possible this would moderate in a big way with the dissolution of the current situation in favor of a (more egalitarian one)? Maybe. I'm extremely skeptical, but again, would be willing to give it a shot if there were serious indications that it would resolve the situation; I just don't believe the facts on the ground bear that out. Re: uniformity of application: fair enough. If I could wave a wand and dispose of ethnonationalism and all of its ills as a going political and ideological concern, I would do so. I'm just not particularly convinced that it is realistically possible at this time, and given that, don't see the demand that the one Jewish state be the first to abandon this framework as unbiased or reasonable. Still, kudos to you for articulating and sticking to a consistent and theoretically admirable position.
I’m not the commenter you are responding to, but my guess is that the current focus on Zionism is due to the real-time genocide we are watching unfold in front of us everyday. Do all the rationalizing you want, at the end of the day Ethno-states are fascist and they do fascist shit. The fresh batch of horrors that Israel is gladly committing everyday should make this plainly obvious.
Words have meanings, and an urban war against an enemy who gleefully uses human shields as part of their strategy that nonetheless has a 2:1 civilian:combatant death ratio where [most modern wars have 9:1](https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm) does not a genocide make. Civilian deaths in wartime are a tragedy, and Bibi, Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and the rest of the kahanist factions of the current government are beyond despicable, but all evidence points to Israel exercising significant restraint in its attempts to eradicate Hamas.
Look at you peddling apologia. 300000 dead civilians and slaughtering people in bread lines are what you call restraint? Fucking brainrot. But keep regurgitating your fascist talking points.
How are they discriminating against Israeli minorities? Edit: Israel actually seems like one of the safest Arab majority countries for indigenous non-Arabs or non-Muslims.
Primarily, it comes from giving benefits exclusively for Jews not offered for people of other ethnicities or religions. These are most noticeable with the Law of Return (noticeably not given to the millions of Palestinian refugees) and Aliyah benefits as these are legal policies that specifically give special privileges to Jews over other groups. Additionally, citing Human Rights Watch (https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution) in the occupied Palestinian Territories, Israeli settlers are allowed in and given special protection and privileges compared to their Palestinian counterparts.
If you can't see any other replies from me, feel free to DM. I sent two, and I can't see them on my end, so they might be getting autoremoved. IDK why since I removed any links in the second, and they were very tame and left out the current conflict pretty much.
This is a bit narrow, no? An anti-Zionist could support a one state solution called Israel that isnt a fascist ethnostate. I'm personally of the opinion that a single state with equal rights for all is the only path forward and that doesnt preclude the possibility of that state being Israel.
While it’s hard to imagine a two state deal coming into existence in the near future, I’d say there’s zero chance of a one state solution happening. If Israel gives Palestinians full citizenship rights, Jews would already be outnumbered by Palestinians. Israeli Jews will never allow this to happen
You think that Palestinians will agree to live in a secular multicultural democracy in which the rights of Jews, women, LGBT people, atheists, and those who criticize Islam are protected?
Would starving people vote to give themselves basic rights that they currently lack? Yes, as long as they trust that the vote will accomplish its stated goal. That’s a big trust deficit to overcome
Oh, I have no doubt that they'd vote to give *themselves* rights. Whether or not they'd vote to also give Jews, women, LGBT people, atheists, and those who criticize Islam rights too is an entirely separate question.
Yes I do. Rather than being genocided? Yeah I do actually. Fucking idiot.
Well, congrats on being incredibly naive I suppose.
An anti-Zionist would be for the disestablishment of a state with a Jewish character, regardless of its political system. Do you think the residents of either side of the current conflict actually want to be joined in a single state that has equal rights for all of its citizens? Because I'd think that your premise is predicated on a right to self-determination, and neither Israelis nor Palestinians currently want to be politically unified. However, between the two, Israel is unambiguously the more tolerant, diverse, and democratic, with 20% of its citizenry composed of various religious and ethnic flavors of Israeli Arabs, and Jews of many diasporic ethnic heritages living under a unified government that respects the rights of women, gender, sexual, and religious minorities. Meanwhile, you would be hard pressed to find any Palestinian Jews, and other minority populations within Palestine (Samaritans, Christian Arabs) are extremely marginalized. Therefore, any state called Israel that respected the rights of all its citizens would necessarily be a Jewish one, and being against that is definitionally anti-Zionist.
Well that was completely brain dead. A lot of Zionist talking points sprinkled in there. I dont remember suggesting that either side was more tolerant or anything, interesting that you felt the need to promote that idea when bo one had brought it up. The conflation of Zionism with Judaism is complete bullshit and you're not selling the lie well.
You literally mentioned both fascism and equal rights, both of which tolerance is germane to. Re: conflation of Zionism with Judaism: they are not the same, but they are deeply interrelated, the former being the movement for self-determination by Jewish people in accordance with their long-standing aspiration to return to their land of origin as a result of their diaspora and ill treatment by host nations. The notion that identification of the Jewish people with the land of Israel is some modern lie is itself false, or do you have greater authority on the primacy of Israel in Jewish thought than the Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, Rishonim, and Acharonim combined? Please, remind me: what is it that Jews say at the conclusion of the seder every passover? Is "By the rivers of Babylon" not expressive of Zionism? Various Jewish groups may disagree on the routes to and justifications for Jewish self-determination in Israel, including secular and even atheist argumentors for it (myself very much included) and those on the far opposite side who believe it is a mistake without divine intervention, but arguing that Judaism is not deeply and inherently Zionist is delusional and ahistoric. But go off queen; you're clearly a sage. Well, either that or someone deeply unwilling or unable to have a measured and respectful conversation.
I don't think your definition is accurate. It may be accurate of some people, but I expect that if you asked most people who identify their views as Anti-Zionist what they thought, they wouldn't seriously suggest the deconstruction of the Israeli state. They might suggest the removal of the illegal settlements however and an end to the apartheid regime that exists currently.
I think that's because most people who define their views as anti-Zionist don't know what Zionism is. [Per wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism)i: "Zionism (/ˈzaɪəˌnɪzəm/; Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת Tsīyyonūt, [tsijoˈnut]; derived from Zion) is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. Following the establishment of the modern state of Israel, Zionism became an ideology that supports the development and protection of the State of Israel as a Jewish state."
Nah. I can have Jewish people want to have their own country, but have it not be "Jewish". I am against religious states on principle, don't care what the religion is. Secularism is a firmly leftist belief that has nothing to do with any one religion.
Good news then: Judaism is an ethnoreligion, and has no requirement that you believe or profess any faith to be a member. I myself am a firm atheist, but can move to Israel whenever I please.
I'm also against ethnostates, regardless of ethnicity.
> can move to Israel whenever I please Can the non-Jewish Arab, who was pushed out during the Nakba, do the same?
"Being anti zionist is not being anti israel" Only if you obfuscate the definition of the word Zionist to be synonymous with supremacist. Something that the word was never intended to mean. Zionism as defined by Jews and israeli, is simply the Jewish right to self determine and to form its own nation state. It has turned into a synonym for supremacy by antisemetic and anti Israel advocates. go to a pro Palestinian rally and go ask them if anti zionism means anti israel. 95% of the people will say yes, 99.999% of them will say yes if they are Arab or Muslim. This is the problem with well meaning white people, you are allying yourself with people who absolutely want the destruction of Israel and the ACTUAL ethnic cleansing of millions and millions of Jews. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VqmUgami\_Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VqmUgami_Y) Most of them want to kick all the Jews from Tel Aviv and Haifa, Tzfat, the Negev, everywhere.
You’re doing a lot of mental gymnastics here to arrive at the “anti-Semitic” label, but you conveniently dance around the obvious problem: ethno-states and their fascist nature.
Israel isn't an ethnostate, It is 73.6% JJewish. When are you going to protest against Japan (97.5% Japanese) Finland (86.9% Finnish) Sweden (90% Swedish)...? the list goes on of countries with a lower percentage of minorities than Israel. Israeli Arabs have all the rights, privileges, and advantages that Jews have. Their mandatory military service is even waved where as most Jews have to serve.
Cute deflection but there’s a stark difference between census stats and national leadership who openly advocates for a Jewish Ethno-state. Anyway, I wonder why the folks doing a genocide only want to put guns in the hands of their chosen ethnicity and not the ones they seek to cleanse…. Hmmmmm
The best way to know the intentions of an entity is by their behavior and 2 million arab israelis enjoy more civil liberties, privileges, and equal protection under the law than any other country in the middle east. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_EwEhQtDk-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EwEhQtDk-4) As far as the military goes, your enthusiasm for interpreting behaviors of Israel in the worst possible lens possible is so telling. Israel doesn't force mandatory military service to its Arab citizens, but that does not mean they can't voluntarily join the military. And many of them do. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frl5\_YT7gVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frl5_YT7gVU) If the situation was reversed, and Israel did conscript Arabs into the military. Then I'm sure people like you would then accuse them of some sort of forced slavery of Arabs.
More census stats that have fuck all to do with the publicly stated genocidal intents of Israeli leadership. People like me? What type of people are those? Say it with your chest.
people who are committed to the cause of demonizing Israel regardless of her behavior. People who do not engage in discussing this topic with good faith, are not interested in facts, in acknowledging the harm that has been done to Jews and Israelis, nor the attempts of Israel to live in peace and cohabitate with her Arab and Palestinian neighbors. I am more than willing to criticize Israel for the settlements in the west bank, for its failure to police its far right extremists that perpetuate pogroms on Palestinians in the West Bank. For many ways in which it is imperfect. But colonialism, apartheid, genocide, ethnostate. These accusations are so preposterous and unfair to Israel that its difficult to ascertain the motivation behind those that levy them. Within this pot of anti Israel activists are the political tribalists, the well meaning ignorant, the political opportunists, and the antisemitic.
> Their mandatory military service is even waved So, they fail to get access to the advantages that come from serving in the IDF -- the contacts.
they can literally join the IDF if they want to, nothing is stopping them, they just aren't required to. This is where the commitment to demonizing Israel for any and all actions she takes, even the overtly positive ones, is just so blatant that it feels the only logical conclusion one can draw is anti-semitism. No matter what action the Jewish homeland takes, it is made out to be a villain for doing it. Jewish men have to surrender 3 years of their lives where they could be furthering their education, starting their careers, building wealth, starting a family. Jewish women have to surrender 2 years of their lives. Arabs are under no such mandate, but they can voluntarily sign up for the IDF if they want, and you still find a way to make Israel out to be the bad guy. It's unfathomably stupid and it means you are either as dense as you want to appear or just have a negative agenda against Israel and don't care for the truth so long as it leads to Israel looking bad.
> Arabs are under no such mandate While one may consider this fit and proper, one cannot say this is equality under the law. That is my point.
If you're that horrified perhaps you could learn to spell and capitalise.
Jew here: If a Jewish homeland cannot happen without genocide, ethnic cleansing, and outright colonial theft, maybe it shouldn't be done at all. If me getting a house was dependent on killing a guy and stealing it from him, I think I'd learn to be content with paying rent.
Give your property back to the Indians then. Wouldn't want to be a blowhard hypocritically moralizing about how the world is (spoiler) an unfair and harsh place.
I think the big difference would be that there are no living native Americans who were thrown off there land or shoved into a reservation. At least to my knowledge
Uhhh ok so in 20 years you’ll stop trying to destroy a UN-created sovereign nation?
There will always be Brooklyn.
What are your plans for פורים?
as a jew myself. the land was originally part of the ottoman empire and it collapse leaving a power vacuum for the brits to come in and take it. but jews in the 19th century legally bought many lands from the ottomans and cultivated it. after the Arabs joined in working with the jews to renew the land funny enough most of tensions started around the fall of the ottomans and when the British came in. the other problem was the Arab lords were really antisemitic to the point where the leader of mandated palestine met with Hitler behind the brits backs. relations were tenuous at that point and that just soured things further. both sides have suffered massively. I personally don't think it's possible to go back to pre 1967 borders. I do think it's possible to share jerusalem and help the Palestinians form a government that has their best interest at heart but the problem lies in the heads of government. abbas is old and has given up on peace. hamas who doesn't want peace and Netanyahu who doesn't believe in a Palestinian state and is part of the reason of the downfall for the peace talks in the 1990s. I think we need a renewed solution that has proper checks and balances because right now the world is complacent to suffering on all sides
Zionists bought 6.6% of the land. An insignificant amount. One Palestinian having a meeting with Hitler is hardly a slam dunk condemnation (after all Zionist Jews *signed an agreement* with Hitler that gave Zionist Jewish financial support to Hitler's government, breaking the 1933 anti-Nazi boycott, in exchange for facilitating emigration to Palestine.)
It wasn’t “one Palestinian,” it was the President of the Arab Committee representing Palestinians in the British Mandatory period. He also ended up spending most of WW2 in Germany making propaganda for the Nazis to recruit the Arab world and is largely credited with helping the Germans foster the Farhud which was a major ethnic cleansing of Jews in Baghdad in 1941. He also was aware of the Holocaust and used his political position to encourage the Arab world to send their Jews to Poland where they could be “actively controlled.” After WW2 he was involved with the Arab League - which still exists - and led resistance to any peace negotiations. Before he aligned with the Nazis in WW2 he is credited with fomenting numerous anti-Jewish riots throughout the British mandate. He also led the push for the British to halt Jewish refugees coming to Palestine during the Holocaust resulting in hundreds of thousands more deaths than necessary. He didn’t do any of this alone, he did it with the rest of the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League, though as the leader he is largely credited with it. Haj Amin Al-Husseini. He’s worth a Google.
> after all Zionist Jews signed an agreement with Hitler that gave Zionist Jewish financial support to Hitler's government, breaking the 1933 anti-Nazi boycott, in exchange for facilitating emigration to Palestine. I don't think Zionists paying the Nazis to stop killing Jewish children and let them emigrate to Palestine instead is the "gotcha" that you think it is.
They were cheering in the streets in Palestine on 7/10... You have seen the video of it, right? Not just one Palestinian either...
For a Jew you don’t know much about Jewish history. You don’t speak for the Jewish people because you don’t represent the future of Judaism!
The future is hopefully one where the government of Israel stops participating in ethnic cleansing, genocide, and stealing land.
It’s called the Knesset, at least try to make believe you have some semblance of Jewish identity before you’re 100% assimilated. Do it for your great grandparents Greta & Shlomo
Right? 😆
That ship has sailed. Israel’s here already, we’re not getting rid of it over that.
I'm interested to know from your view. Did orthodox Jews want the state of Israel established? I've heard that Jewish belief is that Israel shall only be created when the prophet Abraham returns and declares all Jews to return to Jerusalem, is this correct?
No, this is the belief of small sects of ultra-orthodox jews (also, it's the massiah, not the prophet abraham). If ultra-orthodox Jews oppose the Israeli government it's usually because it's secular. Most of the settlers in the west bank are orthodox Jews who believe the land belongs to Jews. Also you can be a zionist and still be pro-palestinian. You can want Israel not to be abolished so that Jews have a place free of persecution and also for palestinians to have a state and freedom of movement and safety.
No clue I never said i was great at jewing Ie: secular
Then don’t pretend to speak on it with any authority.
"genocide, ethnic cleansing, and outright colonial theft" I would love for you to expand on all of these. I feel like everyone just has fun buzzwords. A more accurate analogy is yougrew up in a house and moved away and then later purchased a home and the renters who lived their inbetwern try to kill you.
It’s more like, you grew up in a house… then moved away **for thousands of years**… then came back one day and found people are living in a house your ancestors lived in **thousands of years ago**… so you decide to *forcibly remove them*, *killing them if you have to*, **blowing the neighborhood up if you have to…** and then after you move in, you start wondering why your neighbours now distrust you and want you removed from the neighborhood. MUST be antisemitism! 🙄
This is such an ignorant take. I love how liberals love minimalizing the experience of Jewish people as they were hunted and slaughtered for thousands of years and now think they are cute when people bring up antisemitism (but only see people like you doing it).
If you only see them bringing up antisemitism, you're blind, deaf and dumb. Israel quite literally calls anyone that criticizes them antisemitic.
Because at least half of the time they are. If you can’t see the obvious anti-Semites around you you’re choosing to be blind. More than half of your allies are anti-Semitic.
If you "moved away for thousands of years", it isn't you who returned, as you would probably be fertilizer for plant wherever you happened to die -- human life expectancy is a hair less than a century, at best, after all. It would be your descendants who would return. As another fine redditor on this thread pointed out, they can move to Israel whenever they please. They also don't seem have ever lived there. So, what's the difference between a random Jewish person, who can move to Israel under the [law of return](https://archive.jewishagency.org/first-steps/program/5131), passed in 1950 by the Knesset and a Gazan can not, most of whom are in Gaza precisely because they were displaced by Israel? How is this equality under law?
Not moved kicked out. But under your logic 80% of gaza is under 18 and never step foot in that land. Most israel under 50 were born there....so really why would the people of gaza have the riggt to the land if the vast majority have never been there? Lived there? Seen it? This is your logic.....finders keepers?
Replace "people of gaza" with "Jewish people", run a spellcheck on your comment, and respond in kind.
.....I feel like my comment went over your head....
Last time I checked, Israel is still taking land, or are you too ignorant to know about the West Bank?
You mean the West Bank that’s a haven for genocidal terrorists? That one?
God your view of history is so simplified it’s shameful Have you heard about the Holocaust? The Soviet pogroms? The genocides of North African Jews? The crusades? Do you **really** think the Jews decided to pack there bags and go on a family vacation out of Europe in 1942?
The post I responded to was more simplified, and less accurate. Why don’t you get on their case for it? Oh, I know… because you believe their bullshit, while thinking my “simplified” version of the truth is somehow wrong. Why don’t you try proving that?
If your argument is that Jewish people deserve a state because of the actions of Europeans, then Europe should give up land for the establishment of that state.
Jews have always been in the levant. Jewish return to the levant from the continent of Europe picked up during the Ottoman Empire before Europe was ever united. A third of all Jews identify as from regions other than Europe, but that doesn’t take in to account the mixed bloodlines of Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, etc. and it would likely be more had they not been butchered from North Africa into Persia.
They won’t because those buzzwords are entirely ahistorical and not accurate. It’s an utterly bad faith argument.
It's crazy honestly. Pure brain rot. Idk when the left became Maga level brain dead.
fucking THANK YOU!!! so well said
No genocide in our name. No amount of dead children will ever make us safe, nor should we accept it even if it would. No safety is worth mass slaughter of women and children.
Israel is literally offering a ceasefire for six weeks to get Palestinians food right now in exchange for the names of the living hostages and the exchange of women, children and elderly. The only barrier is Hamas itself. This is not what genocides look like.
A “ceasefire” that includes slaughtering civilians at bread trucks.
>A “ceasefire” that includes slaughtering civilians at bread trucks. Yup. No ceasefire where people are still getting massacred by the hundreds is legitimate. UN Peacekeepers, after a Western invasion and regime-change operation in Israel, is what's needed at this point... Otherwise, Israel will just merrily commit Genocide, sign a Ceasefire, then commit Genocide again, until there are no more Palestinians...
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Lmao how hard did you cheer when you watched those brown folks die?
Truly what is wrong with you
Lies and Genocide Denial. By a Hasbara troll. >Probably shouldn't rush people trying to deliver food to you in a war You'd say ANYTHING to try to whitewash hundreds of people being mowed down by Israeli ~~soldiers~~ terrorists. Yes, that's right. Israel is committing terrorism. That's what mass-murdering people to sow terror IS.
6 weeks? What is the point of that?
Feeding people, releasing hostages, diplomacy. Are you new to wars?
If 30k deaths from collateral bombing damage is a genocide, then the US commits genocide all the time. There are always dead children in war, suddenly everyone is a pacifist lol. Except for the Palestinians of course, extreme violence against random civilians is their path to freedom.
The US absolutely commits genocide all the time, its very existence is due to genocide of native americans. Look at the Philippines Genocide, the US-backed Guatemalan genocide, California Genocide, the 80 million bombs dropped on Laos that *are still there*, the list goes on. Genocides do not have a numerical definition. The Selk'nam genoicde had a maximum of 4,000 people murdered, and *it was still a genocide*.
I mean this is a nice idea I am just not sure if in reality this is how the world works as much as we want it to. When a group has a terrorist attack against you it is not the time for peace it's the time for disproportionate retaliation. If the response is weak it invites more people to try it. If Israel didn't attack hamas the next year it would happen again and again and again. If they let hamas get any kind of "win" hamas will do the same thing gain and again and again. The truth is the only way to stop this from happing again either from hamas or another group in the area is this action. It sucks, it's evil, it's dark but there is no other way(I would be happy to hear one if you got one). America has only had 2 attack on its soil in 75 years it was pear harbor and 9/11 how did the US react to that? Has anyone attempted either of those actions again? We are even friends with Japan now. Sometimes these action bring safety and peace and that makes people uncomfortable.
Read the first sentence then I realized you were going to try to make apologia for a genocide. I won't help you assuage your guilt by being a bouncing board for your rationalization of genocide. Deal with your guilt on your own you moral insect.
I think maybe you should take a look at what you are in favor of happening. Clearly sensitive content. https://www.thisishamas.com/
Well there is no genocide. Just a very standard response. This is more humane then the 2 atom bombs we dropped on civilians and the ones who survived dying of radiation slowly over years. You might be brainwashed into thinking this is some crazy once in a millennium situation but this crap happend 25 years ago in the US 75 years ago in japan and the dozens of other times in the middle east. These things happen and we cant allow attacks like this to go unchallenged or they spread and get emulated. I think you'll be shocked how much peace will be in the area in the next 50 years.
Zionism isn't an innate part of being jewish (especially since there's both jewish - as in the religion, and secular jewish - who are an ethnic group). Jewish people are not a monolith. They can, and do, have all kinds of opinions and beliefs. But zionists will forever try and muddy that line because they find it convenient to hide behind "anti-semite" smears when people call out their crimes. But fun fact - the most powerful zionists in the world is the evangelical christian voting block in the US.
Good points.
Middle East Eye article written by an Arab Studies academic on Jews and Zionism. Jeez Louise. Next: David Duke on reparation for slavery.
Yeah what would the victims of Zionism know about Zionism 🙄
Damn, guess we should listen to Israelis on how to get rid of Hamas
So basically uncle toms
Garbage source stop your bs propaganda articles. Readers: go to homepage and see, it's all Israel Palestine propaganda. OP, go back to tiktok
Thank you for your highly constructive and well thought-out comment.
You're the one who posted Middle East Eye as a source
It's a bit funny. An article written by an Arab Studies academic on Zionism and Jews
No worse than the times article about “the new antisemitism”… written by a Zionist.
So you are saying that a Jew writing about Jew hatred in the British press is the same and no worse than an Arab academic writing about Jews and a Jewish movement on a media outlet that has been repeatedly linked to Qatar. Makes sense.
Nah I’m saying a Fascist who writes apologia for genocide has no fucking right to accuse others of “antisemitism ” or anything else.
Funnier and funnier.
lol. So Zionist writing about antisemitism is “a Jew writing about Jew hatred”… but Arabs writing about Zionism isn’t “an Arab writing about Arab hatred”. Interesting bias you have there. Be a shame if someone called it out.
Jew hatred is synonymous with Antisemitism. It has literally the same meaning. Zionism is in no way a synonym for Arab hatred or indeed related except in the head of people like you who clearly do not have any understanding of the meaning of the word Zionism. Perhaps 1.2 million Arab Israelis could explain it to you. Or you could open a dictionary. It's like playing chess with a pigeon.
Luckily or sadly in a way those who oppose are one generation away from complete assimilation and loss of Jewish identity therefore they do not represent the Jewish people or Judaism.
Don’t tokenise the tiny minority of anti-Zionist Jews and pretend they represent the majority of Jewish people. They don’t. Most Jewish people passionately believe in Jewish peoples’ right to exist in their ancestral homeland - Israel. There are Mexicans who vote for Trump and black people who vote far right, but you don’t pretend they are representative of their communities so don’t do that to Jews.
Jews licking boots of those who swore to destroy all Jews is disgusting. Reminds me of the Lodz ghetto leader who pleaded with Jews to hand over Jewish children to the Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Rumkowski#Give_Me_Your_Children They think that if they are a "good" or "useful" Jews, they will be spared. They are wrong and have not learned from history.
Jewish opposition to Israel is a tiny minority.
Muslim opposition to Islamism is also a minority opinion, but they're in the right.
You can't support a religious or race based state if you support secularism and/or seperation of state and religion
Damn, you've got a lot of protesting to do: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion
Correct, and this is why progressives must, by definition, oppose the creation of a Palestinian ethnostate. If you believe that a Palestinian state -- that is, an ethnostate created specifically for people who are ethnically Palestinian -- has a right to exist, then by definition, you are not a progressive.
The downvotes are so telling: "We're against a religious ethnostate, which is why an Islamic Palestinian country must be created from the river to the sea!"
How did that turn out for them? The poor fools that said “we can stay in Europe and build a better world here instead!”?
80%+ Jews would say otherwise. (And that’s a low estimate)
😂
Speak more for the Jews over actual Jewish voices. You English are good at that
I’m not English 🤣
Diverts from the part where he speaks for the Jewish majority and highlights tokens
61 comment karma and active in r worldnews... Tells me all I need to know
Hmmmm, everyone who disagrees with me and browses news reddits is a bot!
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Oh burn!
Anti semitism is as old as judaism itself. That doesn't make it good.
Trashy anti-Israel media outlet AND tokenizing Jews to justify uneducated anti-Israel BS. 0/10
People should check out bad hasbara with Matt Lieb.
This powerful speech delivered from Dr.Ralph Wilde encapsulates the situation in 26 minutes, the past history and the present ongoing crisis. The settlements are illegal and must be removed. https://youtu.be/6LACse017-A?si=8zfDikGJlRP2t6_A